DPL Reading List – March 10, 2017
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week.
Execution Is a People Problem, Not a Strategy Problem (Thanks to Brian Zimmer for recommending this article) – “However hard it is to devise a smart strategy, it’s ten times harder to get people to execute on that strategy. And a poorly executed strategy, no matter how clever, is worthless. In other words, your organization’s biggest strategic challenge isn’t strategic thinking — it’s strategic acting.”
Getting Started with VoiceOver & Accessibility (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “If you are a web developer working on a Mac, you can become a hero for thousands of people out there by assuring that anything you create for the web can be read properly by a screen reader. This blog post is going to teach you how to access and wield this super power that is built into the OS you use everyday.”
Data is the new IP – “Over the last ten years, data has been increasingly driving business decisions. Google and Facebook have used personal data to make online ads more targeted for digital denizens. Amazon, eBay and Yelp analyze personal recommendations and preferences to help buyers make better decisions about products and services. Netflix and Amazon use data to recommend content and products. In the next ten years, most if not all decisions will be aided — if not primarily driven — by data.”
Research: Customers Notice When Products Shrink More Than When They Get Bigger – “Marketers who understand how consumers think about product size will outcompete their rivals, and help customers make smarter choices too. If you’re going to offer a supersize option, make sure it’s one that customers will actually pay for.”
Nailing the UX of Authentication on Mobile – “The login page is one of the most viewed screens of your app. Just to put things into perspective, 75% of people who have to reset their password during a checkout process, abandon it (source). In intranet portals, forgotten passwords are the #1 support requests help desks have to deal with (source). These numbers can be drastically reduced by clear language and a well thought out flow.”
As a Designer I want better Release Notes – “By applying a simple structure and some basic formatting, you can dramatically improve the appearance, readability and experience of your release notes using nothing more than the plain text characters at your disposal.”
How Safe Are Blockchains? It Depends. – “Blockchain, the distributed ledger technology underlying bitcoin, may prove to be far more valuable than the currency it supports. But it’s only as valuable as it is secure. As we begin to put distributed ledger technology into practice, it’s important to make sure that the initial conditions we’re setting up aren’t setting us up for security issues later on.”
